Pompeii

The rich men, they know about suffering That comes from natural things, the fate that Rich men say they can’t control, the swell of The tides, the erosion of polar caps And the eruption of a terrible Greed among those who cease to be content With what they lack when faced with wealth they are Too ignorant to understand. Such wealth Is the price of progress. The fishmonger Sees the dread on the faces of the trout And mackerel laid out at the market Stall on quickly melting ice. In Pompeii The lava flowed and buried the people So poems such as this could be born.